


Apricity

by falqner



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: (the tiniest bit lmao), Alternate Universe - Magical Realism, Angst with a Happy Ending, Fluff, Homophobia, M/M, Magical Realism, Minor Character Death, akaashi controls the weather, all i can say is fuck akaashi's parents, moniwa and akaashi are cousins hehe, ran away from home, well his emotions control the weather
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-06
Updated: 2020-01-06
Packaged: 2021-02-27 10:15:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,314
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22145482
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/falqner/pseuds/falqner
Summary: apricitynoundefinition: the warmth of the sun in winter.Or: in which Akaashi's emotions control the weather, and Bokuto ends up finding a missing boy.
Relationships: Akaashi Keiji/Bokuto Koutarou
Comments: 6
Kudos: 98
Collections: Haikyuu Secret Santa 2019





	Apricity

**Author's Note:**

  * For [ryneisaterriblefan](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ryneisaterriblefan/gifts).



> My SS gift for ryne!! I'm so sorry this is late: school and university apps have been kicking my butt. Regardless, here's some sweet, sweet angst and a little bit of fluff with weather magical realism! I hope you like it!  
> Also thank you Matt for letting me use your cousins headcanon!

_**apricity** _

**_noun_ **

**_definition: the warmth of the sun in winter._ **

* * *

When Koutarou sees him for the first time, it's 7:48 in the evening at a coffee shop. He's pretty and sweet and sipping coffee from a reusable cup. Koutarou can hear the clicks of the boy’s keyboard and the occasional huffs of annoyance.

The thing is—he hates cliches. Detests people meeting at coffee shops and how romantic it seems but actually isn't. (Kuroo Tetsurou vouches otherwise, but he's always been a liar in that aspect. Hmph.)

Come midwinter, he tracks snow inside every place he dares step into, watches slush pile up on doormats, keeps the heater going well into the night so he doesn't shiver.

(None of that works, as he still shivers when he sees the pretty boy with wind-tousled hair and ocean eyes one lazy night in a fucking _coffee shop._ Go figure.)

Koutarou orders a cup of hot chocolate and walks out. It starts snowing again.

❅❅❅

He doesn't bother reading the articles Kuroo sends him: storms throughout Japan, power going out in Miyagi, grainy pixels amalgamated to form a singular black and white photo of someone gone. Kuroo pesters him, asks him about a boy who may have gone to Aoba Johsai, but Koutarou never answers.

(It’s not like Koutarou would know. Oikawa’s the one who would.)

❅❅❅

By coincidence, Koutarou sees him at the station at 6:21 AM, hurriedly whispering into a phone, face pinched. Pretty boy, as Koutarou has so creatively nicknamed, looks pissed.

It's colder this time around. Koutarou finds himself bundling up in three jackets, pulling a scarf up to his nose, and shoving his gloved hands into his pockets. It’s not like he _dislikes_ the cold, but it dampens his mood quickly. Pretty boy only has one jacket and a beanie on. It’s four degrees and this is it? How is he not freezing?

He huffs out a breath and watches his hair fly. He hadn’t had time to apply hair gel this morning, so it’s flat. He despises it, but maybe Pretty Boy won’t recognize him from the coffee shop. He’s always hated cliches.

Koutarou waits at the station and listens for the rumbling of the tracks, encases the memory of Pretty Boy with a blue coat, dark wash jeans, and boots in a shiny glass cage in his mind. He runs his fingers through his hair, holds onto the strap of his bag, waits for Kuroo to text him with some stupid meme or Sawamura with tonight's dinner plans.

When he turns around, the boy is gone. All that's left is the hissing of the wind. He can feel it getting colder.

❅❅❅

"Hey, Bo! Did you see the articles I sent you?" Kuroo calls from the living room. Koutarou walks out of his room.

"I did but I didn't feel like reading them."

"What?!" He sounds incredulous. "Why not?!"

Koutarou flops down on the couch. "They just seemed long and boring and stupid. I'm not interested in weather stuff."

"Ennoshita's been telling me about the power outages and fluctuating weather they've been having in Miyagi," Sawamura cuts in. "Apparently it was boiling today."

"Ennoshita was probably lying," Kuroo says.

"Ennoshita doesn't lie you fucking rooster."

"Hey!"

"And while you're at it, push up your glasses. They're gonna fall off."

"HEY!"

Koutarou laughs, loud and raucous at 3:46 PM. He wishes this was his always, stupid weather and all. He blames climate change.

❅❅❅

He doesn't bother with the articles, lets Oikawa rag on and on about them. "K" here and there, panic in his voice. Moniwa is never home nowadays.

❅❅❅

Koutarou goes to class as normal. He listens to his professors drag the lessons on and on with monotone voices. They blur together in his head, find no reprieve in the thresholds of his mind.

It's warm in February. Not the kind of soft warmth where the sun is kissing his face and the clouds are sparse but still there; the kind of warmth that never seems to end, the kind that drags on and on until lilacs and plums and rose pinks paint the sky. It's not pleasant.

The trees outside the window are still bare. The branches look jagged, like broken constellations or Kuroo's chemistry models.

He looks at the sky again.

Are those—

"Clouds? What the—?"

He watches clouds roll in, grey and ashy and ugly. Wind starts to pound against the glass. Maybe it'll crack and there will be shards flying and burying themselves into the wall. He doesn't hear thunder—not yet.

In some childlike part of him, he thinks someone is sad or angry. He thinks about someone controlling the world around them without meaning to, their emotions running rampant. Death's Kiss on flowers, a blizzard in the middle of summer, maybe. Koutarou wrinkles his nose and looks down at his hands. He wishes he could cheer this person up by holding them and telling them everything.

Outside, the wind howls.

❅❅❅

He sees Pretty Boy at 11:48 PM. Koutarou's walking to the playground. He hears the creaks of the chains, the rustling of the swing, the drag of feet across the ground.

He detests cliches, but maybe some stupid deity is telling him to give in to fate instead of trying to avoid it. So, he walks over to the other swing, brushes off any dust, and sits on it. Pretty Boy doesn’t spare a glance at him, but his shoulders are hiked up and his torso is rigid. His lips are curved into a frown and his eyes bore holes in the ground.

“Hello!” Koutarou says.

Pretty Boy doesn't look at him, and Koutarou's about to pout when—

"Hello."

"I'm Bokuto! I've uh...well...you're pretty!" He swings his legs a little.

In the lamplight, he thinks he sees Pretty Boy smile. "Thank you, Bokuto-san."

"Do you go to university here?"

He swears Pretty Boy mutters something under his breath before answering, "No. I don't." He hears the creaking of chains again.

(The clouds clear up. The wind crescendos.)

"Do you live here?"

"Yes. I do."

(The bushes start rustling.)

"Oh! Can I get your phone number?"

"Sure."

(The tanbark starts flying.)

Pretty Boy punches in his number.

"Thank you! Er...what's your name?!" Pretty Boy winces.

(Maybe someone starts crying.)

"It's just that, I can't use a nickname forever!"

(He thinks he senses anger. Fear. An unbridled hatred from deities that don't exist. The wind sounds like static. In the reflection of the moonlight, the boy smiles.)

"Keiji."

❅❅❅

The power goes out in their dorm. Thunder rumbles nearby. Classes are canceled. Kuroo and Sawamura print out downloaded articles and lay them out on the table. They talk about weather and storm patterns and the chances of precipitation. He hears Moniwa babble incoherent sentences on the phone, probably on the verge of throwing something at the wall. Oikawa asks his professors what all of this means, why the weather is acting like this.

Koutarou likes the unpredictability. He texts Keiji.

_**Hello!!** _

**_Who is this?_ **

**_bokuto! from the park!!!_ **

**_Oh. Good morning Bokuto-san._ **

**_are u safe ? the weather is really bad._ **

**_keiji?_ **

There’s no response for three days.

❅❅❅

“Hello?”

_“BOKU-CHAN!”_

“Oikawa?”

_“Finally someone from that apartment picked up! Where’s Tetsu-chan?! Dai-chan?? Kana-chan?!?!”_

“Kuroo and Sawamura are talking to their professors about that weather stuff that’s been going on! Moniwa’s back home!”

_“Dammit...he’s on the train….I heard there’s going to be a tornado somewhere??”_

“H-How...what?”

Oikawa sighs. _“I have no clue. Absolutely NO clue. It’s probably just some rumor, but everyone should get inside. Hopefully Kana-chan sees my text when he gets off.”_

“I hope so…”

_“Thanks for the help! Bye!”_

“Wait—” The line goes dead.

❅❅❅

_**keiji** _

**_Yes?_ **

**_did u know about the tornado warning? is it real ?_ **

**_No, Bokuto-san. It’s just a rumor._ **

**_how can u be so sure ?_ **

**_I just know, Bokuto-san. Again, it’s just a rumor._ **

A tornado hits Hokkaido the next day. Koutarou calls Keiji.

❅❅❅

Koutarou sits on a park bench and swings his legs back and forth. A long time ago, maybe during his childhood, his mother would’ve scolded him for swinging his legs like that. He could kick passerby or hurt himself. It was improper, impolite. But, really, it’s not a bad day. Why shouldn’t he show his excitement?

The thing about today is that even though it’s winter, summer bleeds into his eyelids. He thinks about the old house he used to live in, with wood walls and sand in the cracks and the ocean next to him. He thinks about summer festivals and fireworks at night, how his mother’s eyes used to light up at the very sight. He remembers the scent of wet sand and the taste of sea salt on his tongue. It’s not bitter.

It tastes like home.

Keiji has ocean-scented detergent at his house. Keiji, with wind-swept hair and ocean colored eyes and sun-kissed skin, reminds him of summers spent in bliss.

Koutarou looks at the trees across from him, tries to pick out any discrepancies. He’s just _bored;_ there’s nothing to it except the rare feeling of boredom. He checks the time on his phone. 3:43 PM.

Keiji is supposed to be here at 3:45.

He pulls up the group chat between his flatmates and scrolls through the messages he skimmed over.

_**oikawa tooru is a dumb bitch~** _

_**[Sawaaaaa]: Oh my god what do you want for dinner, stop being a brat Kuroo** _

_**[KuBRO]: I just want your love~** _

_**[MoniMoni]: You’re dating Yaku??? Hello???** _

_**[KuBRO]: What he doesn’t know won’t hurt him…** _

**_[Oiks]: I’m telling him you said that_ **

**_[KuBRO]: Oh god don’t he’s going to kill me_ **

**_[You]: HEY HEY HEY_ **

**_[Sawaaaaa]: Look who’s here now, what do you want for dinner tonight?_ **

**_[You]: not gonna b home tonight, going out to dinner w/someone_ **

**_[Oiks]: Oh? Does our little Boku-chan have a date?!_ **

**_[MoniMoni]: Oikawa stop bothering him_ **

**_[KuBRO]: Who’s the lucky guy? C’mon tell us_ **

**_[Sawaaaaa]: Oh my god are you two serious_ **

“Bokuto-san.” Koutarou looks up and sees Keiji with his hands shoved in his pockets.

“Keiji!” He pockets his phone and stands up. “Where do you want to go to?”

“There’s a cafe nearby. Let’s go there?”

“Sure!” Koutarou skips all the way.

❅❅❅

_**Bokuto-san. That was fun. Thank you.** _

❅❅❅

Koutarou glances at colorful flyers. Pictures of a boy, danger signs, a phone number typed out perfectly. Each flyer sits crooked on the pole, hanging on by a flimsy piece of tape that’s losing its adhesive. They say ‘MISSING’ in big, bold scarlet letters. It’s too bright for him to read, and he doesn’t feel like reading it. Not now. Not today.

He thinks ‘MISSING’ is just an ambiguous way to say ‘dead’, anyway.

He’s friends with someone. Not particularly close, not in the way he’s friends with his flatmates, but Tendou Satori has a strange way of making friends with everyone and no one at the same time. He’s weird. Koutarou likes it.

“Hey Koutarou~ Did you hear about that crazy weather?”

“Yeah I have!! It’s all weird and stuff, but I like it!”

“Oh really? What’s your favorite type?” Tendou makes a peace sign and smiles.

“The rain storms! I sleep easy then!”

“Oho? I liked that tornado. SemiSemi was there and—”

“Semi was there?! Is he okay?”

Tendou flicks his hand, closes his eyes. He’s content. “Of course he is! SemiSemi isn’t going to get knocked around by a tornado!” He starts humming some random western song.

“Alright, if—” Koutarou’s phone chimes.

“Oooh, does Koutarou have a date? You don’t get texts like this!” Tendou peers over Koutarou’s shoulder.

_**dfkjhkjHJKSDHFGJKSHDG** _

**_hdfkjhKJHJKDF_ **

**_keiji ?_ **

**_are u ok ?_ **

He can practically hear Tendou frown. “Hmm...not very interesting.”

Koutarou shakes, grips his phone tight, watches the characters continue rolling in. It’s like a high tide, washing away all the grit and blood and dirt, leaving only clean sand. As if nothing was there at all.

The word ‘MISSING’ flashes in front of his eyes, but he cannot see it.

❅❅❅

_**kuroo is a rooster -sawamura** _

**_[Sawaaaaa]: GET HOME ALL OF YOU_ **

**_[MoniMoni]: Only one not here is Oikawa._ **

**_[KuBRO]: Holy shit Oikawa respond_ **

**_[KuBRO]: If you’re outside I swear I’m telling Iwaizumi_ **

**_[You]: oikawa can you please come inside_ **

**_[Oiks]: Oh my god I’m here!! I’m just climbing up the stairs!!_ **

**_[Sawaaa]: Thank god. I’m not letting you deal with a blizzard._ **

**_[Oiks]: yeah yeah, I’m opening the door_ **

Oikawa is shivering. He’s holding documents in one hand, his phone in the other, and he’s shivering. Fallen snow coats his hair, falls to the ground, melts on the carpet.

Oikawa is shivering.

Oikawa is cold.

_Was Mom cold like that? Was she ever cold like that? Did you ever notice?_

“Oikawa!” Koutarou jumps up from the couch. “C’mon c’mon...what were you doing out there?!”

“Is Oikawa back?” Moniwa calls from his bedroom. It sounds far too distant.

“Yes!” He sees Oikawa wince from the corner of his eye. “He is! Oikawa oh my god. I’ll grab your blankets.”

“N-Not….n-now….where is Tetsu-ch-chan?”

“He’s in his room, but that can wait.”

_Did Mom freeze in winter? Did she burn in summer? Did you ever see her?_

“Please Oikawa! Let me help you!”

“I’M FINE!”

_Oh...he’s fine…._

“Boku-chan….I-”

“It’s okay. It’s okay, Oikawa.”

“No no it isn’t and I—”

“I know. I forgive you. Let’s go to Kuroo’s room!” Koutarou plasters on a smile.

❅❅❅

“...kay, so this is happening….”

“We think it’s because of…..”

“My cousins has been missing for months….”

“....see anyone…..Akaashi…..let me know.”

“.....ssei has been looking…..”

“Oikawa…..here…..tea….”

“I’ll ask Suga.”

“Mori…..help…..”

“....not dead….”

**“Akaashi.”**

❅❅❅

Koutarou doesn’t remember the paper faces; he remembers real faces. In blizzards, storms, hurricanes. He remembers real faces.

He remembers Keiji’s face. He remembers his mother’s face. He remembers all of them, frozen, cold. Chunks of memories fall like glaciers. They shatter.

_‘We have never gotten to absolute zero. It’s simply not plausible.’_

❅❅❅

“Hey Keiji.”

“Hm?”

Koutarou swings their hands back and forth and revels in the sunshine that day. It’s warm. Pleasant. “Do you wanna meet my roommates?”

Keiji’s eyes widen and he grips Koutarou’s hand tighter. “Uh—”

Koutarou waves his free hand frantically. “They’ll love you! I haven’t told them your name, but they’ll love you anyway! They know how smart you are, how pretty you are!”

Keiji’s shoulders sag. “Then lead the way.”

Koutarou breaks into a sprint, still holding onto Keiji’s hand.

_**sa’amura is a bad parent** _

**_[You]: hey ! i’m bringing him home!_ **

**_[Oiks]: oooh the boyfriend? Finally!_ **

“They’re a little rowdy,” Koutarou lets go of Keiji’s hand to fish for his key, “but I think you’ll like them! One of them is kind of….well he’s kind of showy, but he’s not a bad person! He just likes attention because his boyfriend isn’t here.”

Koutarou opens the door. “WE’RE HOME!” he shouts to no one.

“Welcome back!” Sawamura calls out, probably from the kitchen.

“Come out! I’ve got someone you guys should meet.”

They all step away from their activities. Oikawa’s finally crawled out of whatever hole he was in, glasses askew and hair mussy.

“Guys! Meet Keiji! He’s really cool and I told you he was really pretty and—”

“Keiji?” Moniwa.

He hears the speed of the wind pick up outside, confusion laced in every passing breath. Trees rustle outside their balcony.

_A dying breath. A mother’s last words._

“I...I….Kaname….I….Oikawa-san…..”

“Akaashi? Wha-you-” Oikawa can’t stop stuttering, can’t stop the breaths of panic spilling out of his mouth.

Koutarou turns around.

The blood in Keiji’s face has dropped—somewhere, somewhere far far away. He clenches and unclenches his fists, opens his mouth and closes it, struggles to breath.

The air around them becomes thicker, hotter, _suffocating._ Like a last breath for someone that will never die.

“Keiji, wha….we’ve been looking everywhere for you,” Moniwa reaches out to him, disbelieving. He can’t be real.

Koutarou stops breathing.

_“Akaashi has been missing. If you hear anyone named Akaashi going around Tokyo, let us know.”_

_Keiji….Akaashi….Keiji…..K…..Aka…...A….._

_**Akaashi Keiji.** _

❅❅❅

Somewhere in Japan, an earthquake shakes citizens to the core. A hurricane flies into the open. Disasters, all of them. The world screams and shakes and hurts, ice cold and unforgiving. Frozen, like death.

❅❅❅

“Akaashi, please come back. Mattsun misses you. Kana-chan misses you. Please, everyone misses you.” Oikawa actually looks hurt, moving closer, holding out his arms for a hug. Keiji— _Akaashi—_ flinches.

The boy who has been gone has been at his fingertips for so long, just out of reach. And he’s here now and won’t take another step forward.

Kuroo looks in confusion. Sawamura recognizes, understands. It haunts him. Moniwa looks incredulous. The boy standing in front of him has to be a ghost.

_This can’t be real._

How has he been dating a missing person for three months? How?

He turns his head around slowly, watches Keiji back up, hold and twist the cloth near his heart, grit his teeth. Koutarou whispers out one thing, cracked and broken and utterly _useless._

“Why?”

Keiji backs up. _1._

“I’m so sorry. I-I’m so sorry.” Keiji doesn’t cry, just shakes his head and whispers mantras of “I’m sorry” over and over again.

_2._

“It’s okay, it’s okay. Just..come back!”

_3._

Keiji shakes his head. “I can’t.”

He runs.

❅❅❅

Somewhere in some distant part of his mind, Koutarou hears sirens wail, hears his flatmates take in their breaths, hears the crackling of the sky, the anger of the deities that he didn’t believe existed until now. His blood runs cold in his veins and his head feels like it’s burning. Everything will implode.

He thinks snow will come in, just like that one winter day.

❅❅❅

_“Koutarou?”_

_“Yeah dad?” Fourteen year old Bokuto Koutarou hears his father call from the kitchen. He brushes off his pants and walks over._

_His father chews his lips and averts his eyes. He sits down on their old couch and pats the spot next to him. Koutarou sits down and swings his arm over it. “What is it?”_

_“The police….,” his father lets out a breath. “They found your mother.”_

_Koutarou breaks out into a grin. “Awesome! Do you know when she’ll be home? I have so many things to tell her! I—Dad?”_

_His father covers his face with his hands, shoulders shaking, quiet sobs racking his body. “Y-Your mother….she’s dead. Near a frozen lake.”_

_Dead._

_Outside, it’s the coldest his home has ever been._

❅❅❅

“Shit, why didn’t you ever _tell_ us his name?!”

“He wanted to be kept unknown!”

“And you didn’t think to ask him why?!”

“I don’t ask personal questions like that! If he wanted to tell me, he would’ve!”

“Hey, stop arguing—”

“HE’S MY COUSIN! You didn’t read the fucking articles?!”

“WHY WOULD I?!”

“KUROO SENT THEM TO ALL OF US AND YOU NEVER ONCE THOUGHT OF **READING THEM?!”**

“NO—”

“WHY NOT?!”

“It’s hard to do that when the words ‘MISSING’ come up every time!”

“WHAT DO YOU KNOW?!”

“Moniwa, calm down, please—”

“My mother went missing.”

“Hey you don’t have to tell them—”

“She died alone.”

“Boku-chan…”

“It’s okay now. Just….I don’t like the word missing. No one expected me to read those articles.”

❅❅❅

Koutarou goes out on good days—rare as they are—to look for Keiji. His efforts turn up fruitless and all he has to show for it is snow tracks in his flat. There are no warm welcomes from anyone: Sawamura is always on the phone with Sugawara, Kuroo is using whatever internet musters up to figure out some sort of pattern, and Oikawa locks himself in his room and sets high arcs with his worn-out volleyball. Moniwa isn’t home now.

He texts Keiji once. Twice. Thrice.

Keiji leaves him without a sign.

❅❅❅

When he walks around town, he finally takes the chance to look over each flyer. ‘MISSING’ exists in faded letters. The phone number is slowly dissipating into nothing. And Keiji’s face, still grainy, an amalgamation of pixels that freezes cold for one singular moment.

How had he never noticed?

There’s a pit of sorrow that builds up in his chest, a kind of sadness that doesn’t go away. It lingers there, keeps him cold under his pile of blankets.

❅❅❅

“Bokuto. I’m sorry.”

“I forgive you.”

❅❅❅

When Koutarou walks out of his room with five coats, three scarves, two beanies, and four pairs of gloves and shoes, no one questions it. Sawamura nods at him. Kuroo walks up to him, gives him a shaky hug (coffee isn’t the best thing to drink four days in a row), and hands him some documents about the blizzard. How it swirls thicker in one area. Oikawa adjusts his scarves to fit around his nose and squeezes his shoulder. Moniwa comes out of his room with a blanket, spares one glance, then goes back in.

Koutarou closes the door with a _‘click’._

He didn’t bother to check the temperature earlier; his service is all fucked up anyway. Snow sticks to his eyelashes and the frayed threads of his gloves. He thinks he sees frosted glass, a pile of snow on top of a roof, a tree flailing in the wind. It’d be funny if Keiji wasn’t missing.

_Keiji….Akaashi…._

He continues walking around Tokyo, finding no passerby on the straight. The lamps guide him in a snow-covered hell, dim as they are. Lights are off, banners fly. Tokyo looks ghostly. He despises it.

❅❅❅

_“Koutarou.”_

_“Yeah mom?”_

_“Always be kind, even when others don’t think they need it.”_

❅❅❅

There’s an area in front of him where the snow gets thicker and swirls in a vortex instead of flowing in one direction. It shouldn’t be possible, but this is probably not some crazy weather phenomenon.

No, this is _magic._

Koutarou plunges in head first.

❅❅❅

_“I’ll tell you what happened. I’m sorry.”_

“It’s okay. I’ll find you.”

_“Did you know that every 7th generation Akaashi can control the weather? I knew, except it’s not me. It’s emotions.”_

_“Did you know that Kaname and Issei were gay?”_

_“Did you know that my parents hated that? And I never knew?”_

_“They despised me last year. Loathed my very existence within the house.”_

_“It’s not a pleasant story. I told them one day. They shook their heads at me, called me sick, called me gross, called me ugly and nasty things, and I though_ _t—_ _think—they were right right right, because no child is supposed to be hated so much by their parents, right?”_

_“They told me to disappear, to get out of their sight forever. So I did. I disappeared and got out of their sight forever. Took all my savings and as much money as I could to survive.”_

_“But these things….the weather haunts me. Did you know that?”_

_“I was supposed to be in my last year of high school. I would’ve been at my last year of Aoba Johsai. Oikawa-san’s school. I would’ve been happy.”_

_“The weather seeks the truth from everyone. Especially me. That’s what they said. It’s just a more poetic way of saying no matter what I do, the weather always conveys how I really feel.”_

_“I-I ruined it. I’m so sorry, Koutarou.”_

_“It’s been a year. What do I do?”_

“What do I do?” He finally sees a boy, curled up and staring up at the sky, face impossibly neutral and eyes so, so dark. Cold, lonely, empty.

“Keiji…,” Koutarou stands there, arms hanging uselessly.

“Bokuto-san, what do I do?”

Koutarou sucks in a deep breath, lets it out, watches his breath freeze. He crouches next to Keiji—a lost weather boy now. “We’ll figure it out.”

❅❅❅

His mother told him to let go, to never forget but to try and forgive, even if it was far too hard. To try and stay happy, positive, even through something as turbulent as life and all its traps and nooks and crannies.

So he lets go, holds Akaashi Keiji in his arms and never lets go, even in the frozen tundra he caused.

It’s not fair, after all, to hold on to something so fragile, something called despair.

❅❅❅

The problems don’t go away on their own. Koutarou hadn’t expected them to.

(For once, he wanted to be part of a cheesy, cliche love story, where he could be a hero to someone he cared about. Because he _hates_ cliches, hates being reminded of a typical dead mother and a quiet father who lost his luster for life. He wants to be part of a _happy_ cliche.

He’s happy anyway. Cliches don’t fucking matter in the long run.)

Moniwa and Oikawa fuss over them like somebody’s mother. Kuroo calls the police. Sawamura just makes sure they eat. There’s still a freaking blizzard everywhere they go, but it’s...mellow. Tamed.

When they kiss on Koutarou’s couch, Koutarou remembers summer, bliss, the ocean, and the wonderful things that always came with it.

❅❅❅

“Are you going home?”

“No, Bokuto-san.”

“Aww, I wanna see Miyagi!”

Keiji chuckles. “You’ve already seen it. Sawamura-san has played against you in volleyball.”

“Well yeah, I know, but I wanna see it with you!”

“Maybe later. Not now. I don’t think the weather will allow for it.”

“ALRIGHT! HEY HEY HEY!”

“Bokuto-san, keep it down.”

“I can’t help it, it’s—is that the sun?”

The sun peeks out over the horizon, still hiding in the clouds. Koutarou remembers pink and purple painted across like watercolors, blending in with red and yellow. He grins wide and toothy this time.

“Would you look at that? The sun’s finally out! And in winter, too!”

“I suppose it is.”

“It’s very pretty.”

“Yes it is, Koutarou.”

“It really is!”

❅❅❅

**(The warmth in my veins, the tears of the rain, that is what you are, my dear.)**

**Author's Note:**

> Whee it's 5 AM I'm gonna sleep now haha  
> [Twitter](https://twitter.com/falqner) | [Main Tumblr](https://falqner.tumblr.com) | [Writing Tumblr](https://hayaatos.tumblr.com) | [CuriousCat](https://curiouscat.me/falqner)


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